Which is the part about bitcoins which is scary. All those questionable bitcoin sources. I had did some calculation, you wouldn't even make minimum wage with these things.Legit sources of Bit Coins will also offer you normal cash. Which is often still easier to deal with in the real world.

The goal of these things isn't to make minimum wage, it's to be able to get free fractions of bitcoins in the hopes that it ever gets much higher than it is right now. It did get from 14 cents up to 1200 dollars once, so we never know what might happen in the future.

When BTC opened up to the world, I mined 48 (I'm pretty sure) BTC on a headless box that chugged away in my 'server closet.' Rather than deal with the taxes, I simply donated them to EFF. They were worth some $11,000+ (total) when I donated them. I'm not sure when/if they cashed them in.

Yes, tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is illegal. I didn't feel like dealing with putting them on my tax statements which would be public information and subject to scrutiny as I'm running for the State Senate in 2016. No

Nah, we'll have a standard in about 5, but Google and Mozilla will jump the gun and implement it (badly) in 2, just to show how progressive they are. Then they'll abandon it and put forward their own implementation, which is incompatible. Oh, and it doesn't work on Android yet. Well, it does, but only on the very latest version which you can't install on YOUR device. Again, just being progressive and all that.

And in 5 years they'll end up adopting the standard anyway because that's what everyone will do.

I say that we should fix the real problem. The real problem is that I have to give my credit card number, or debit card number, or bank routing information to the store that I want to make a purchase from. I would much prefer to have a system, more like PayPal, where I can authorize a payment to an online store and not give them any information that would allow them to access my account to create further payments.

As soon as I submit my credit card number to a store, there's any number of things that could go wrong after that time that would cause my account to become compromised. Doubly so for things like debit cards or account routing information that would cause me to lose money from my actual account.

I'm not saying that PayPal should take over. However, there should be a standard way to make a one-time payment from any financial institution and it should work similarly to PayPal in that the money gets transferred to the seller without giving them any information that could be used to make another transaction that isn't verified by me.

I like Bitcoin as my solution to this problem. I just recently bought some stuff and the site emailed me back my password in clear text. Idiots! That's the point where I was really glad I had paid in Bitcoin.

Not a bank - a credit union. I find that some of them are ahead of the curve. It's also a lot nicer when you've got some skin in the game and own shares instead of just being a tool to be wielded or customer.

Full disclosure: I've numerous accounts and sit on the board at my local credit union.

Indeed, the payment info should go the the customer (payment of $X to at ), who then signs it with their private key, sends it on to their bank.

Bank verifies that the signature is valid with the public key, and that the payment isn't a replay (the exact same payment), and that the funds are available; they sign it with their private key, sends it back so it gets to the merchant.

Merchant gets the payment information, verifies the bank's signature with the public key, sends merchandise.

The path as shown in the WG's wiki [w3.org] suggests the possibility of this. It provides the option for payment processing to happen on the payee side or on the payor side. Once it gets to "Send Payment Response," the payee has the option of performing processing, and if not, it goes to the payor to be processed, perhaps using a signed, token-based architecture. A payment-complete notification is then sent to the payee, completing the transaction.

That's not the real problem. You demand a technical solution to a legal problem. If banks were required by law to refund any unauthorized withdrawals immediately, including all fees, interest etc. incurred (including any you may have had to pay to third parties if the bank declined any cheques / transfers), you just wouldn't have to care. Why should it ever be your problem if your bank permits unauthorized parties to access you account?

The real problem is that I have to give my credit card number, or debit card number, or bank routing information to the store that I want to make a purchase from

I just moved to the Netherlands and my first online purchase was met with "Pay with iDeal" as the only option. I freaked out and after I was done I was left thoroughly impressed. It's a bank agnostic payment system processed by the banks themselves with your account. I.e. just like paypal the actual payment is handed over to the financial institute and the store never sees your credit card (or in this direct-debit) details. Then the actual process of paying depends on you bank security (in my case I have th

Yeah, it really does seem to be the best solution. Other commenters said that people should just get an account that allows them to generate 1 time use credit card numbers. But that is usually a cumbersome task and requires a lot more effort than most people are willing to go through to make an online payment.

A properly designed customer initiated payment can be almost as simple as using a credit card, and much more secure. Plus there are ways you could allow ongoing/subscription payments, which one time c

That could be very true but is true of every direct debit / cash / check transaction. Online protection is something provided by individual credit card companies complying with LOCAL credit card laws.

iDeal is generally protected at present since it is unique to the Netherlands, registered businesses, and thus subject to consumer protection laws. This would be quite different if the system is expanded internationally, but again while we're postulating possible solutions a similar such solution could simply b

Sure, but you haven't explained how MC & Visa will make 2% of every transaction. If your new, technologically superior payment system doesn't include that feature, they will use their not inconsiderable resources to see to it that anything that pays them more gets used instead.